Submission on Draft Water Sharing Plan for the Murrumbidgee River

Inland Rivers Network and Nature Conservation Council submission:
Draft Water Sharing Plan for the Murrumbidgee Regulated River Water Source – 14 June 2002
• A new clause should be added, ensuring that baseline data are gathered on a yearly basis during the tenyear
tenure of the plan. The results should be incorporated into the yearly auditing plans and the five-year
review.
• The results of the IMEF process should be incorporated into the yearly auditing plans and the five-year
review. As significant data becomes available, it should be reviewed and incorporated into the WSP
where appropriate. Government should be exempted from compensating water users for reduced
allocations if the monitoring results clearly indicate a need to increase environmental allocations.
• IRN, NCC and ACF recommends that 100% of licensed installations for extraction of surface or ground
waters (excepting stock and domestic bores) are monitored with verifiable and timed volumetric
metering. This should be fully implemented within two years.
• The following processes are incorporated into the WSP:
− the monitoring program should include vegetation eco-systems (particularly riparian), aquatic ecosystems
and identifying sites that are (i) highly sensitive, (ii) moderately sensitive and (iii) of low
sensitivity. It is proposed that at least 4 highly sensitive sites, 4 moderately sensitive sites, 4 low
sensitive sites be monitored for each planning area (numbers are debatable). The method of
determining these sites will vary from catchment to catchment. For each monitoring site, at least 3
control sites should be determined.
− all reviews of WSPs must assess the results and trends of any monitoring programs.
− monitoring should be attributed to an agency or a particular group (eg Waterwatch, local
environmental consultants, academics).
− the periods of time between site monitoring be less for high sensitive sites (say 6 months) and more for
low sensitive sites (say 12 months), and seasonal monitoring requirements should be addressed when
developing a monitoring regime.
− once water sharing is fully implemented, the proposed monitoring regime must continue and be
publicly reported on an annual basis.
− all monitoring should be maintained in a central database that is publicly accessible. We suggest an
independent organisation such as a University which could act as the custodian for the data.
− the results from the monitoring process must be ecologically acceptable before progressing to the next
stage of the WSPs implementation. It is important that targets are be quantative. For example; “no
decline in status of threatened species, populations or ecological communities”, and “10% loss of
health, distribution or extent of any high or medium priority ecosystem triggers a review”.
CONCLUSION
IRN, NCC and ACF are extremely concerned that this Draft Plan does not contain provisions that secure the
improvement of this stressed river and its ecosystems. We are of the opinion that the environmental flow
rules for the Murrumbidgee Regulated River are totally inadequate and must be completely rewritten taking
the following recommendations into account.
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